This excellent little critterbot is far smaller than the other robots in use by the military, and is being considered as a way to scout possibly-hostile buildings and areas. I was skeptical of its usability until I saw its little flippers come out and get it up that curb. It looks simple but it was probably very difficult to get the weight and center of gravity right on this little thing. It weighs less than a pound and fits in a big cargo pocket.

Several of these guys can form a small network and report “findings” to each other and beam video back to whoever deployed them. They seem to be able to navigate surfaces pretty well, and if they make about a billion of them, they could be practically throw-away. They’re made by iRobot, of Roomba fame, which explains how it’s so good at getting around.

In other news, Brightcove needs to fix their embeds so they actually center and/or can be resized. Those of us who care about things like page layouts find the above configuration quite offensive, and if you check the source you’ll find it’s ignored div and resolution parameters.

[via Danger Room]

That’s pretty cool, but now all I can think of are other ways of tracking the little bot. Webcam on its “head”? Merge multiple normal exposures? Attach a sharpie to its “tail”? So many experiments to do, and I don’t even own a Roomba! I guess when I move to my new hardwood floor apartment, I can track my Fukitorimushi.

[via Doobybrain, Daily What, and Gizmodo]

Doug Aamoth here in Boston at the 2009 RoboBusiness Expo with some fodder for the “Robots Will Eventually Rise Up and Kill Us All” debate. No matter which side of the argument you support, if you’re someday killed by an autonomous robot it won’t have been made by iRobot.

Towards the end of his How Robots Make War More Survivable presentation this morning Vice Admiral Joseph W. Dyer (U.S. Navy, Ret.), President of the Government & Industrial Robots division of iRobot, touched on the subject of robot ethics. He posed the following question:

Will we ever see autonomous killing machines?

All military robots are currently operated by a human, and while autonomous robots are in development, that autonomy will progress in stages – they’ll require less and less control by humans until they’re fully automated. Picture a kind of robotic cruise control, if you will. Also, today, if a military robot loses communications, a soldier has to go and retrieve it. Soon, if a robot loses communications, it’ll maneuver itself back to the last point it had a com signal.

There will be armed robots but iRobot believes that “life-and-death decisions should not be made independent of a human.” The Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) places responsibility on humans, who are currently always in the loop when controlling military robots. In the future, iRobot believes that the introduction of more autonomous robots will call for a new code of ethics. For now, though, iRobot has no plans to create a military robot capable of killing without first being authorized by a rational human being.

Dyer also commented that the battlefield of the future will look different in that we’ll see far fewer human soldiers. He gave the example of an unmanned underwater vehicle hitting the shore and deploying a bunch of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can be controlled safely from afar.

This is important because currently over half of all soldier casualties occur at the point of first contact with the enemy. Military robots are able to greatly increase soldiers’ “situational awareness” by, for instance, surveying buildings before soldiers enter. UAVs also give a birds-eye-view of a battlefield, which is helpful from a logistics standpoint. Dyer referred to the most basic battlefield questions: “Where is the enemy, what is he doing, and where the hell am I?” Military robots are, for the most part, helpful in answering those questions safely.

Here’s a video featuring soldiers using military robots in battle. The quality’s not great, but it’s a video of a video taken from the back of a dark room. If I had my own robot, I could have maneuvered it up closer to the screen without causing too much commotion.

Adoption of UGVs is on the rise, with most functions currently entailing things like clearing buildings in Iraq and searching caves in Afghanistan. Dyer mused that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is a closet gamer, as he was shown actually smiling (see below) while testing a UGV. Apparently he “didn’t stand in the sense-of-humor line all that long,” according to Dyer.

As far as what’s driving the development of smart weapons and virtual presence technology, it’s predominantly logistics. The whole idea is to increase attack speed and survivability while reducing exposure. There’s been a shift from broad attacks to precision, surgical attacks thanks to the help of UAVs, UGVs, and recently, UUVs (unmanned underwater vehicles.

From a development standpoint, the UAV market took 20 years to sell half a million units, the UGV took 10 years, and the newer UUV market is expected to take about ten years as well. The U.S. is the current leader in military robotics and, when asked which country would be able to potentially challenge that crown, Dyer responded that Japan and China can produce robotic technology quickly and on a large scale, but “Korea is most worrisome” as government and private industry is placing a lot of emphasis on military robotics. It might soon become one of the biggest industries there.

This crazy looking thing could be hunting/killing you this year if iRobot has their say. It’s essentially a periscope attached to an iRobot Packbot that, as you can plainly see, can push a camera eight feet into the air. Called the Zipper Mast or the Situational Awareness Mast, it’s a pretty freaky looking device.

The Situational Awareness Mast (SAM, also known as a Zipper Mast) from Geosystems Inc. is a telescoping linear actuator that has a unique property — it’s stroke length is an order of magnitude greater than its nominal height! For example, the SAM8 is a 10 lb device with a stroke length (8ft) that is 24 times it’s nominal height (4 inches)! This can be used to vertically translate a robot’s sensor suite for better visibility while still allowing for a low profile. Read on for information on the different Zipper Mast variants, the patent describing the system, and an exclusive video of a Zipper Mast on an iRobot Packbot!

Imagine if this thing came through your toilet. Hello, nurse!

Individually, though, I’m sure they’re very helpful. I’ve heard stories of army engineers who have cried upon seeing their robot destroyed or irreparably damaged by a mine or RPG blast. Noble as it is, it is precisely that kind of emotion that will lead humanity to defeat in the coming Robocalypse.

Update: Yeah, that was autoplaying. Sorry. Video now inside!

[video borrowed from iRobot]

iRobot

The Nippon-only device is based on the Roomba 530 model, with the only difference being the cute design. Available from September 30, the Hello Kitty-Roomba costs $800. It’s available online only and is limited to 500 units.

IRobot has a couple of new Roombas for you pet owners. Two, to be exact. There’s the Pet Series Vacuum Cleaning Robot and the Professional Series Vacuum Cleaning Robot, both of which sound like a real hoot. The Pet Series has a few things that make cleaning up after your pets a little easier, including a large sweeper bin (for collecting pet hair and dander and all that muck, shudder) and an extra set of purposeful brushes. Our cup runneth over, clearly.

Meanwhile, the Professional Series steps things up a notch by including even *higher* capacity storage bins and a bin for the Roomba itself. This one is for small businesses or other higher traffic areas, where a regular Roomba isn’t quite up to the task.

Robot Stock News has discovered a patent by iRobot for a “Lawn Care Robot” similar to the company’s line of robotic vacuum cleaners. While robotic lawnmowers aren’t new, they’ve had a hell of a time replacing conventional lawnmowers. You know, the kind that actually cut your entire yard in a reasonable amount of time even though you have to do all that inconvenient “walking” we’ve heard so much about.

The biggest challenge for current and previous robotic lawnmower offerings has been how to keep the things inside your yard. Various methods involving line-of-sight spikes or buried wiring have been used. The iRobot patent alludes to the idea of GPS navigation or some sort of audio beacon to keep the mower within your property lines.

The iRobot mower will be theoretically able to avoid obstacles in your yard, recharge itself, and even collect grass clippings. From Robot Stock News…

“The Mowba lawnmower — (iRobot will surely have a better name?) — would be able to avoid most obstacles on its own, such as driveways, trees, pools, ponds, curbs, etc.
There also appears to be an option for a robot-activated recharging station. (Something also available on the Robomower.)
Among other cool features:
* A possible edge trimmer along the outside edge of the chassis.
* The possibility of collecting clippings and depositing them at a specified location;
* The possibility of using RFID tags or proximity sensors to avoid running into pets or people;
* The possibility of learning your lawn in the first cutting and remembering it for future cuttings;
* The inclusion of grass-combing technology to ensure that the grass is fluffed and properly oriented for cutting.”

This all sounds well and good, but the biggest factors will undoubtedly be cost and how well the mower actually mows your yard. It’s one thing for your Roomba vacuum to miss a spot of unseen dust on your rug, it’s an entirely different thing for a Roomba mower to leave patches of unmowed grass all over your yard. How long it takes the mower to cover an entire normal-sized lawn could also be another factor. If it takes six hours and multiple recharges to get everything and you have to untangle it from your garden a few times, it might turn out to be more trouble than it’s worth.

Still, if any company can get the robotic lawnmower right, it’s iRobot.

via BBG

Noah “Red Hot” Shachtman wrote a great piece on an iRobot insider who stole the plans for the company’s military Packbot robot and recreated the robot himself, becoming a direct competitor to iRobot. The thief, Jameel Ahed, was frustrated because he wasn’t given full control over the project. He quit the company and, after reworking the design, was able to recreate the Packbot’s special rotating paddles which kept it upright on rocky terrain.

Ahed started a company called Robotic FX and almost beat out iRobot for a military contract, leading the company to bring a lawsuit against one of its top engineers.

On Monday, August 20, a district court judge in Alabama issued a temporary restraining order against Robotic FX, demanding that it preserve “all evidence, information, data, and documents.” The next day, iRobot’s lawyers showed up at Robotic FX’s office, US marshals in tow.

They searched the office, then Ahed’s parents’ house, and finally headed to Hill’s apartment in Chicago. Ahed and Hill got there first, barely, and went in through the back door. Hill let the marshals in the front while Ahed ran to the bedroom. His laptop was there, its screen displaying a message that the hard drive had been wiped clean. He unplugged it, put it in a case, and slid the case underneath the bed. Then he went to the living room, where the marshals were asking Hill where the computers were. She didn’t mention the laptop. They found it anyway.

Ahed is currently banned from competing in robotics and iRobot eventually bought his assets, essentially folding in his copycat robot back into its own project. IP theft doesn’t pay, kids.

Early in Colin Angle’s blogger round-table today, he recounted the story of Packbot, their first military robot. iRobot sent a team to Afghanistan in 2002 where they showed soldiers how to use and manage the new Packbot robot, a self-righting, remote controlled surveillance bot designed to enter a room or cave so soldiers don’t have to.

The soldiers complained about using “toys” in the field, saying that they were specially trained to clear caves. This went on until they were faced with the entrance to a dark cave in the mountains where they suddenly discovered that sending a robot into the darkness was far better than sending in a soldier. It was this point, the “cave mouth epiphany” that convinced the Army that robots are a way around the asymmetric warfare that has become the norm for today’s conflicts.

Angle talks like PhD and doesn’t look like a roboticist. He is trim, neat, and well-spoken and his vision for iRobot doesn’t involve steel, motors, and sensors but intelligently programmed helper devices that can improve and even save our lives.

Angle told us that robotics is hard. To make a seemingly intelligent, autonomous floor sweeper took iRobot over 10 years. Their work in autonomous cleaning robot allowed iRobot to look at the sweeping, and later washing, problem with some training and experience.

Angle foresees that robots will soon become omnipresent and amazingly useful in aging populations. Devices like the Connector create a “mobile physical presence” for nurses and caregivers to stop in to “visit” the elderly virtually, reminding folks to take their medicines and even to eat.

His main point, that robots will soon do the jobs we don’t want to or can’t do, is a quite cleary coming to pass. I asked him if there was a “cave mouth epiphany” in the home robotics industry and he shook his head. “We’ve sold 2.5 million robots, but that’s 1 to 2% of market penetration. The digerati love robots, but our real audience is middle American homemakers.” Looking at his Scuba, Looj, and Roomba, it’s clear that his audience is missing out and when the finally see the value of a cleaning robot, the cave mouth epiphany is right around the corner.

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